This week, Rocket League gets bolstered cross-play capabilities by allowing friends on different platforms to team up. Being able to play against others on different platforms has existed for a while in RL, but with the ability to team up with friends on another platform, another major caveat of cross-play gaming gets blasted away.

With Rocket League developer Psyonix taking cross-play so seriously, we can only hope that other game developers are going to as well. I’ve been recently playing Forza Horizon 4, and it’s a good example of a game that does cross-play right – as long as you consider the fact that the game is only available for two different platforms (Xbox and PC).

Another game I am really looking forward to is the upcoming Trials Rising, due on Feb 26. It’s been close to five years since the release of Trials Fusion, and while that game is still going strong, Rising is going to bring a fresh coat of paint, and of course added content to help keep things interesting. As you might suspect at this point, Trials Rising is also going to have some cross-play capabilities – though not to the same extent as Rocket League.

With the last Trials, player-created tracks were not available on all platforms at launch, but that’s something Psyonix changed after a couple of years. Today, there are so many tracks available from those created on all of the available platforms that you could truly spend as much time as you wanted exploring what others have created (I’d recommend checking out The Cave!).

In Trials Rising, cross-platform tracks are going to be a thing from the get-go, but better than that, so will cross-platform leaderboards. As simple as leaderboards may seem to be, it’s oddly rare to have those cross-platform like the rest. This reality means that players have many more record-setters to compete against (which includes racing against their ghost). Even better? Profiles are also going to be shared across platforms. That includes progress, which is a huge improvement over Trials Fusion (I had three accounts, so I know this well.)

It’d be great to see a lot more support for this. There’s no true cross-platform play here in Trials Rising, but all of the other marks have been hit. It could be that cross-platform play will come at some point, but given Rising has been in development for a while, it may not have been realistic to expect it available at launch. And, it may still never come, but it’s good to see companies taking cross-platform seriously at all. It used to be that we could automatically count cross-play out, but it’s at least a possibility nowadays. Rocket League sets a good example.

Trials Rising is going to be launching on Feb 26 for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.